Sick Puppy

Oh dear. Our Rayburn – part household god, part cantankerous family retainer and our only source of hot food – is not well. It started making sputtering noises a few days ago, and slowly started to lose heat. Cooking became even more of an exercise in zen-like patience than it was before, until finally we were forced to recognise the inevitable and turn it off. It takes a long time for a Rayburn to cool down, even a little one, but you have to wait for it to be cold before you can attempt to relight it (‘otherwise,’ as our neighbour warned us with great relish, ‘it can explode!’), but the other half’s efforts were in vain. It sputtered some more and went out. There is a dank chill at the heart of our kitchen, not to mention a faint whiff of oil. The plumber is coming, but with no detectable sense of urgency. We are living on sandwiches and salads and thinking with longing of the handy takeaways we left behind in London.

On the plus side, a red squirrel bounced across our front drive as I was doing the washing up the other day. It’s all go out here on the cute-and-furry front, I tell you